I am actually quite paranoid (a disturbed thought process characterized by excessive anxiety or fear) about needles. But, I still go get a flu shot most every year. Today was the day this year. Nina told me that a local pharmacy was giving flu shots today for $15, a very good price. So I made my way to the pharmacy this evening, paid my money, sat down, and closed me eyes to make sure that I did not see the needle. So what did the nurse do? She gave me a countdown before the jab! Ugh. I was not happy. Then as she was putting on the band aid she said, “Oh, you look a little pale! You better sit here for a minute…” I told her it would have gone much better had she not said, “Ok, here it comes … 3 … 2 … 1 … JAB!” But I did sit there for a couple of minutes before standing up. I still felt a little wobbly-kneed, but got out of there without going down. Next time I’ll make sure to give some instructions first.

I’ve mentioned Twitter before. I’m finding it quite interesting. I try to send an update every few hours, most are bland and inane. I’m following a couple of family members (one of whom has never “tweeted” .. hint, hint littletwerp) and a few other people that I know or know about. A couple of them are very interesting and they often send links to interesting stuff (in addition to sending just inane, bland updates). Twitter also has a capability of “tracking” keywords. Any tweets that contain that keyword come to me even though I’m not following that person. So, I’m tracking three keywords: Idaho, Utah, and Mormon. That has also been very enlightening. This afternoon about 3:30 I got a tweet from the U.S. Geological Service that there had been an earthquake on the Wasatch Fault at 3:06 p.m. this afternoon. It was a magnitude 1.2 quake just down the hill from Heather’s house! That’s probably not strong enough to be felt, but still that was pretty close to hearth and home! One of the people I follow (Phil Windley … teaches IT at BYU, former CIO for the State of Utah, host of the monthly Utah CTO Forum) somehow grabs all of his updates that he’s sent to Twitter and puts them on the sidebar of his blog. I’d like to figure out how to have that automatically happen (it’s kind of cool!). There are so many interesting web things going on!

The company I used to work for here in Pocatello today did another round of people cuts. The company is having some serious problems and it’s being taken out on the people who work there. I’m very happy not to be associated with them anymore. Their idea of culture and ethics are a very long way from my idea and a very long way from those held by the Pocatello community (where the company is still the 800 pound turd). Woodrow Wilson said, “Never murder a man when he’s busy committing suicide.” Unfortunately, my former company seems to be high on the list of companies busy committing suicide … they can’t even release their third quarter earnings because of inventory valuation accounting issues. Meanwhile, no one in senior management is getting shot … for now they are doing the shooting. But, they should be warned: what goes around comes around.